Post navigation

ST. LOUIS—Two Opera Theatre of St. Louis offerings this year are what might be called folk operas, both from the 1870s. One, Bedrich Smetana’s The Kiss, was published as such, but it’s largely unknown outside the Czech Republic. The other, the Gilbert-and-Sullivan Pirates of Penzance, has been entertaining audiences ever since its New York premiere.

In 38 seasons, OTSL has done yeoman service to unjustly neglected operas. With The Kiss, though, at least judging from Saturday night’s performance, rarely has obscurity been more richly deserved. The word must have gotten around, judging by the largest numbers of empty seats I can recall at Webster University’s Loretto-Hilton Center.

The young widower Lukás and Vendulka agree to marry, against her father’s advice that they’re both too stubborn. Sure enough, when she refuses to kiss her fiancé before their wedding, they both fly into rages. Only after Lukás goes on a drunken tear and Vendulka briefly hooks up with some smugglers do they come to their senses, with a happy ending.

At least as rendered in David Pountney’s rhyming English couplets, Eliska Krásnohorská’s libretto is inanity itself. Although from a rich period in the composer’s oeuvre, and occasionally anticipating Dvorák and Janácek, the music is largely Bohemian boilerplate.

The opera’s case isn’t advanced by Michael Gieleta’s staging, with most of the acting at the level of a high-school play. In a co-production with England’s Wexford Festival, designer James Macnamara’s big sliding-wood panels and synthetic turf make do for a set. Costumes, by Fabio Toblini, look 1940s provincial.

Conductor Anthony Barrese seemed as unexcited about all this as I was, plowing through the overture with no shape, often allowing member of the St. Louis Symphony to play too loudly, and not always keeping things together.

Gilbert-and-Sullivan operettas aren’t primarily vehicles for glorious singing, although they certainly require some verbal virtuosity. Still, as appealing as Matthew Plenk and Deanna Breiwick are in The Pirates of Penzance, one longs for voices more lyrical, less edgy for the lovers Frederic and Mabel. The animated, rubber-faced Maria Zifchak nearly steals the show as the matronly Ruth.

Bradley Smoak is an aptly virile Pirate King, Hugh Russell an endearingly dotty Major-General Stanley, although his patter could be clearer. Tobias Greenhalgh supplies a smart baritone for Samuel, Jason Eck an underpowered bass-baritone for the Sergeant of Police.

As often when choreographers stage operas, Seán Curran overdoes hyperactivity and shtick. Designer James Schuette provides Victorian costumes and a bright, modern takeoff on a Victorian theater. Conductor Ryan McAdams led a taut, nicely detailed orchestral performance Saturday afternoon. Choruses, prepared by Robert Ainsley, would have been better if less loud at times.